From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ec3b1a84cab8fc8a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-09-06 15:28:50 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!194.42.224.136!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!psiuk-p2!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: WAY OFF TOPIC was: Re: Ada and the NMD Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 17:31:08 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: <9n8put$67u$1@nh.pace.co.uk> References: <3B970152.4AC6C6E3@PublicPropertySoftware.com> <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 999811869 6398 136.170.200.133 (6 Sep 2001 21:31:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Sep 2001 21:31:09 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:12853 Date: 2001-09-06T21:31:09+00:00 List-Id: If there is clear and convincing evidence that X is a problem and the public believes that Y is a practical solution to the problem, you'll see political action. Despite what people may choose to believe and/or advocate, there is no overwhelming, clear, convincing evidence that the earth is in imminent danger of destruction because of CO2, global warming, global cooling or whatever the latest "threat" is. (Remember that for an extremely large number of species on this planet, CO2 is a *good* thing - hence expect them to flourish.) Even accepting that there is some real threat here, it is not at all clear that any or all of the solutions proposed by various advocates are going to be practical and effective. Hence, you get what we've got - political ambivalence. What disturbs me about the whole debate is that you'll have "Liberal" scientists and "Conservative" scientists arguing positions as to what action to take based on their political ideology - which makes a mockery of science. The very notion of "Liberal" or "Conservative" scientists eliminates the science from it. Too many people start from the result they want and then go collecting data to support getting what they want and that is not "science". Too often the general public swollows up propoganda masquerading as "science" and have not even bothered to question the accuracy of the pronouncements or even question that it might in fact be propoganda. How many people ever ask: "Are there dissenting opinions?" How many people ever say: "I ought to read some of those dissenting opinions to see if maybe they have any merit." And of that subset, how many people read the dissenting opinions with an open mind rather than just gathering material on which to base their rhetoric? The whole global warming/cooling thing is being clouded by advocacy. At best an honest scientist would have to conclude that the data itself is questionable and hence does not at this time support any conclusions about the current state of affairs and does not support the conclusion that there is a real and imminent threat at hand. Hence, "science" is not in a position to make any firm recommendations about the course of action whole nations should embark on. Does this mean we should all go about happily adding more and more pollution to the world? Of course not. Nobody wants to live in an open sewer. At the other extreme, should we, for example, go about outlawing the existence and use of any internal combustion engine? That would have devastating economic and social impact in the process of addressing a yet to be demonstrated problem and would undoubtedly result in unintended consequences. (It may only shift the pollution problem in some other direction that may be even worse than what you've got now.) So I'd suggest that the question should be studied scientifically - without advocacy - and in the mean time take reasonable steps to reduce whatever pollution we are creating. We certainly aren't all going to be dead in 10 years unless we take drastic actions immediately. (Remember all those horrific ecological disaster predictions from back in the 60's/70's that claimed we'd all be dead by the year 2000? Welllllll....... :-) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Ted Dennison" wrote in message news:rPQl7.6990$4z.30964@www.newsranger.com... > > Quite true. You won't really find much coherent come out of the US government > unless the US people themselves are fairly unified on the subject (which for the > subject at hand, they certainly are not). As a former speaker of our House of > Representatives was fond of saying, "all politics is local". >